Over fifth of people in Lithuania live below poverty line

Around 650,000 people, or 22.9 percent, lived below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold in Lithuania last year, up 1 percentage point, the latest figures from Statistics Lithuania show.

The poverty line stood at 307 euros a month per capita or 644 euros a month for a family of two adults and two children under 14.

17.3 percent of city residents (11.7 percent in the five biggest cities and 26.1 percent in other cities) earned disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. And the percentage stood at 34.4 percent for rural residents. The former grew 1.7 percentage point and the latter decreased 0.4 percentage points.

The at-risk-of-poverty threshold in Lithuania was the highest among the Baltic states. It dropped 0.7 percentage points to 21 percent in Estonia and was up 0.3 percentage points to 22.1 percent in Latvia.